


detour

by nigiyakapepper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16397270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigiyakapepper/pseuds/nigiyakapepper
Summary: A rip in spacetime? A trick of the heart and mind to believe they were actually speaking to their loved ones who had moved on and out of mortal reach?Keith is fine with the way things are, more than fine if he were honest. And heishonest. This is the happiest he’s ever been. But never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he could tell his father that.Or Keith gets the chance to talk to his dad again.





	detour

**Author's Note:**

> more keith birthday fic! little sidefic to [in a name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386461) but a-ok to be read as standalone. [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KfebtABniY) for atmosphere.

Keith shouldn’t have been surprised, that in the infinite vastness of space and its various physical planes, something like this can happen.

A rip in spacetime? A trick of the heart and mind to believe they were actually speaking to their loved ones who had moved on and out of mortal reach?

Keith is fine with the way things are, more than fine if he were honest. And he _is_ honest. This is the happiest he’s ever been. But never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he could tell his father that.

There’s no uncertainty or fear like before, in the Marmora suit’s mindscape. No heat, nor smell of laser fire and burnt ozone. His father is handsome in the daylight, standing in front of the steps of his childhood home, looking exactly as he remembers.

“So you’ve met.”

Krolia moves first, her widening strides a contrast to the frozen belief on her face. Keith’s father meets her half way in a tight embrace. Keith hangs back, riding the crest of all emotions building up inside him – awe at the way his father’s brows scrunch up when he buries his face in his mother’s shoulder, awe at the way Krolia’s shoulders tremble as she does the same. In all the years Keith has known her, he’s never seen her cry. She’s taller than his father too, which he finds charming.

Keith is so focused on the scene he doesn’t come to how he too has run towards his father’s outstretched arm, until he’s bundled up in a hug with his mom and smothered by laughter, tears, scruffy kisses, and – _oh_ , there it is – the scent of old wood and desert sand. He’s warm, and solid, and real—

“I’ve missed you both so much.”

“Us too, Dad.”

They sit on the porch steps and talk about any and all things. Keith begins with telling him how he’s the leader of Voltron, then winds back to finding Krolia, to being a Blade, and the Red Paladin, to fighting against Lotor, the Galra, and Zarkon.

His father listens. It’s clear by the expression on his face that he’d never wanted for either of them to see war, much less be the center of it. He whoops and yells when Keith tells him of their triumphs, wrings his hands in tension at their near-misses, and sighs in relief when everything turns out alright. Movement is foreign to Keith’s arms, and he realizes he’s been talking animatedly – gesturing like he used to do when he was a kid coming home from school to tell his ol’ pop what they'd been up to all day.

He also realizes how close Krolia and his father are sitting, sides pressed against each other. The fingers of his left hand laced with her right, resting atop their thighs. She looks more at peace than Keith ever remembers.

It reminds him of Shiro.

He tells his father about him too.

Much like his time on the space whale, Keith can’t seem to run out of things to talk about Shiro. There’s a wellspring of gratitude inside him that overflows. Krolia chimes in, languidly eager to tease her son about his affections. His father laughs warmly.

“Wish I could meet him,” he says and something in Keith’s heart twists with muted sorrow.

“You would’ve liked him,” Keith says.

“Oh I already do, from what you’ve told me. Sounds like he’s gonna take good care of my son.”

Keith sits a couple of steps down, so he can rest his head against his father’s knee, gaze soft at the horizon. He listens to his mother talk about their old haunts in the little nearby desert town – eating fry bread tacos and gelato in the sweltering heat of their ancient pick-up truck, windows rolled up in case anyone looked too closely and saw a tall purple alien.

“Your father fought fires,” Krolia says in a matter-of-factly tone. “He wasn't an accoucheuse or a midwife.”

“I helped a lady give birth in a taxi one time!”

“—is what he told me a varga into my labor. It’s a miracle you were healthy.”

Keith dissolves into laughter.

“Your ma fussed ‘cause you were so tiny. Even if you came at 9 kilos.”

“Oh my god—”

“It was profoundly difficult to explain to your father what was different with Galran child births when I had never experienced it myself.”

None of them are concerned with the passage of time, nor whether or not it exists here in this dream-like realm. When finally, unthinkably, the conversation drifts, his dad pulls him up to a gentle hug and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“I’m sorry that I left you so soon, son,” he whispers. “But seeing you all grown up and happy, I’m settled. You’ve got good friends, your wonderful mother, people who love you and people you love.”

Keith shifts to return his father’s hug, tries to burrow into his warm brown jacket and fight against the burn of tears in the back of his eyes.

“No matter what trouble you’re gonna face, whatever life’s gonna throw at you, you’re gonna make it through. Because you’re brave and strong and you’ve got a _big_ big heart. It’s all this old man can ask for.” He pauses. Takes a shuddering breath.

“I’m so proud of you.”

Keith closes his eyes and wipes his cheeks, because he doesn’t know what to do if he sees Krolia give his father one final embrace. When he does open them again to face him, his heart feels lighter than it’s been in years.

“I love you, Dad.” His words an echo of the last ones he spoke on the day of the fateful fire, but no longer with any pain.

“I love you too, Keith,” his father says.

 

 

 

 

 

They wake.

And what were the chances of meeting Bob twice in one’s lifetime, especially with how long some species tend to exist?

…second to none, that’s what. The fact that Keith had already met the guy in the first place was beyond possibility, but to find himself back in the presence of what he now knows is the closest to what mankind considered God – Creator, Higher Power, etc. – and to…live? To tell yet another tale?

He turns to his mother, whom he had been returning to Marmora HQ with after a quick intel op, for answers. She should have them, right? (Even if space is infinitely vast and knowing everything about it just can’t be done. Unless you’re, of course, Bob.)

“Lost?” a voice booms around them, impossible in the vacuum of space. Its tone is knowing and the slightest bit amused.

Krolia sits up from the slump of slumber and gives a surreptitious sniff, more than a little put off by the whole situation. Not to mention Bob opting out of the game show host persona to don an entirety of whirling cogs, rings and several thousand eyes swiveling toward them is a whole new definition of unnerving.

“No,” Keith says, exchanging a little comforting smile with her. “We’re on our way home actually.”

**end**

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to make Bob his kind of "what angels really look like"-type of google searched mofo but figured the in medias res approach would be easier. the true forms of divinities are wild.


End file.
